


in a deep dark woods

by freezerjerky



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, astro newt, but there's no sexy here, just a slenderman adjacent creature, previously known as sexy scientist newt, this is not a typical fic from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 04:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16442777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezerjerky/pseuds/freezerjerky
Summary: In which our intrepid space traveler encounters something out of most people's nightmares





	in a deep dark woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feriowind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feriowind/gifts).



> A fun little seasonal piece requested by the lovely Ferio- featuring our favorite space hero! For anyone who is not familiar, astro Newt is Ferio's AU featuring Newt as a space traveling scientist exploring the far flung galaxies...sometimes with sexy results and other times with...this.
> 
> Check out my tumblr @ pendragoff or my twitter @ newtguzzler to learn how to maybe get your own fic

There are a few direct orders that he knows he must follow on any mission, and Newt does his very best to adhere to those whenever and however he can. The first, and most straightforward, is that he’s a man of science and he’s on his missions for scientific discovery, to learn more about the world and the people and things in it. If he takes a sample, it must have a sound scientific reasoning and he should never do anything to interfere with the natural order of the planet he’s on. That’s not conducive to the mission, after all.

The second rule, tied closely together with the first, should be a universal rule for all life forms. Do no harm. There’s a caveat to that as well. Do no harm except to something that would do harm to you. Or do no harm intentionally, at the very least. This leaves wiggle room to do harm to something or someone that’s trying to hurt you, or does hurt you intentionally or otherwise, but Newt doesn’t like to even consider the possibility. He’s been given the tools to protect himself from harm and he doesn’t mind the defensive items, it’s the offensive ones that really bother him. As long as he can remain distant from the ongoings of the worlds he visits, he doesn’t want to put himself in the position of being harmed by anything out in the world. Bad and good are objective concepts, after all, understood differently in different cultures and as long as something isn’t trying to, say, destroy their entire planet, he’s obligated to let it go.

At least that’s how he chooses to interpret the rules. He knows he has colleagues that think otherwise, that see the worlds they visit and explore as vistas of conquest. It’s easy enough to come up with a scientific precedent to study pretty much anything, even if it means harming a creature or an entire population. Some days, he thinks he’s in the wrong line of work entirely judging by the way his colleagues carry on about the things they’ve seen and even killed. Newt wears the fact that he has not killed another animal or animal like creature like a badge of honor. (Plants are different, but even plants he has differing and complicated opinions about, which only makes sense. He studies plants so closely, and knows to some extent they can feel, but can they feel the way living flesh or scales or fur can? Probably not the same. Probably there’s a line he has to draw and this is it.)

All of this would be fine if Newt was what was considered careful. If he was an indifferent observer who kept to safe spaces in these new and exciting worlds, or if he learned how to communicate with locals in a way that kept a distance. That was never him, though, he’d go into towns and share drinks and laughter and anything else he was willing to with those around him, even if many people found his forward demeanor more off putting than charming. Or he’d go out into their wildernesses and find the most dangerous places of all and put himself square in the middle of incredibly dangerous situations. He just needed to see everything so fully and completely and to explore every possibility with reckless abandon. It’s honestly a blessing that Newt is so good at what he does, because otherwise he’d likely have lost his job and any comfort that goes with it ages and ages ago because of this recklessness.

This is the same recklessness that lands him in the middle of a forest in the cold, dark depths of night. The trees and other flora don’t look too vastly different from what most planets have- thick brown bases with green or blue or purple leaves- nothing too out of the ordinary. In the darkness, he can’t even make out the colors properly, so he honestly guesses to chronicle them for his files. It’s cold and he’s got his poncho on, which is thankfully enough to combat the chill. Most likely, he’ll have to sleep somewhere in the forest overnight, as he’s wandered far too far away from where he entered, far too far away from an escape and definitely far too far away from the sign that clearly marked that people were not supposed to trespass in these woods because they’re rather dangerous. It was, after all, already too dark to read at the time he entered and, in Newt’s defense, he’d probably have entered anyway even if he did read the sign. The sign was put there as a temptation, after all, nothing more and nothing less. Saying he couldn’t enter a space would only make him want to enter it more.

He’s picking mushrooms, or something he thinks are mushrooms, or mushroom like, when he hears voices not too far away. Instead of making himself scarce, he starts to shove the mushrooms in his bag with an amazing speed. There’s no way he’s leaving without this fantastic sample, it’ll no doubt be pivotal to his next branch of research on healing fungi and their consumption by various species. Or at the very least will give him something to work on in his lab while he’s traveling, which is the dullest time of all and avoiding boredom is pivotal. It’s not that he’s not trying to be quiet, but he trips over some roots (always clumsy on his feet, no matter what he does) and nearly tumbles down onto the ground.

“Shit,” he says, not quite recovering himself as a light flashes in his direction.

“Hey! Didn’t you read the sign?” someone in the distance shouts. Newt freezes. “Anything here’s fair game, you know.”

It doesn’t take Newt more than a few moments to start running. He doesn’t know exactly who or what he’s up against, but he’s not going to find out. They, whoever they are, mean to do him harm, and he can fight or he can run. There’s merit in being a bit of a coward in this moment and he runs as fast as he can, still holding on tight to his bag of mushrooms. (Science is and always will be the top priority for him and he’ll pursue it to the ends of the earth, to the ends of his own life without hesitation.)

The forest is tied up in roots and he stumbles, listening to the voices laughing behind him. For a moment he thinks he must be paranoid, surely he’s not being pursued, but the sounds still follow, still trace his footsteps on the forest floor. He’s grateful that he’s chosen flat shoes today, he’s less grateful for how bulky the poncho is as it catches against branches. Fear is not exactly how he’d describe what he’s feeling, but a flighty panic, a concern at being caught in this situation. These voices following him likely have weapons, are likely looking to taunt or kill and he knows he’s not going to be able to keep his smart mouth from running when confronted with this sort of violence.

Newt’s also not sure how much longer he can run, he’s not made for running these sorts of distances. His best bet would be to find a place to hide however he can. He’s hidden out for a couple of hours or a night before, usually when he’s got caught in bad weather or he’s angered some sort of large animal that may try to eat him, or when he’s wandered too far and gotten lost. Really he’s just impressed by just how damn resourceful he can be in these sorts of situations.

If he was thinking more clearly, he’d have headed back the way he came, looped around instead of driving himself deeper into the forest. He’s not familiar enough with the topography here to know how large this forest is. Some forests are small thickets, half an hour and you’re out the other sides. Others you can be lost in for a days or longer without really ever emerging.

The night is still young, he remembers as he trips for about the fifteenth time, and the voices are getting closer. If he could get a moment to himself he could call for emergency backup, someone to come rescue him and bring him out of this godforsaken place, but if he stops who knows what’ll actually occur. Instead he has to hope they tire before him, and hope’s usually worked out well for him. He’s gotten through so much on sheer luck alone. Newt’s just taken a glance back when he bumps into something very large, and very much so not a tree. He falls back to the ground with a resounding thud.

“Huh,” he manages, looking at the figure over him. It’s not exactly human, or human at all, but Newt knows the many species of the universe enough to know what is and isn’t a humanoid, and this figure has a human like torso, even with the gangly limbs and alarmingly toothy looking smile. Upon first glance, it may be a convincingly terrifying costume but that doesn’t seem true at all. It feels very real and Newt can’t imagine the reasoning for wandering a remote forest looking like this. Unless someone’s an idiot. Like him.

When he hears the voices approaching, stepping close enough he can hear them as closely as his own, he does the first thing that comes to mind instinctively. He throws himself at the stranger- or strange creature, as though putting himself at their mercy. Literally throwing himself at this creature is probably not the smartest course of action, the best or the most thorough way to keep himself safe, but it’s all he can think of, as he screws his eyes shut in fear. Because in that moment he does feel fear, as much as he’s been attempting to keep it concealed and deny it within himself.

“What the hell?” one of the voices, just a normal humanoid, Newt realizes upon opening his eyes. But a normal humanoid with a very large gun, remarks, and there’s two men taking steps back, hastily scrambling. 

“This fucking place is cursed, it’s- it’s cursed!” the other shouts, scrambling up a branch strewn hill after his comrade.

An awkward silence falls over the forest then, and Newt can hear his heart pounding acutely well and he can feel the shifting of the creature beside him. He cranes his neck, getting another look at it, the blackness of the torso cut with the blinding white of the head, of the face with the crooked, jagged teeth cut in a twisted grin. The grin is, no doubt, the only state of this face, Newt cannot imagine with the likely bone structure that it can twist into a frown at all.

“Sorry- sorry?” Newt starts, because he’s good at talking, normally. Or he thinks he’s good at talking, he’s really not so sure about that anymore. “I think they were trying to kill me or something, so thank you for...not also killing me?” He pulls himself away, brushing himself off from the dirt and debris on the forest floor.

He’s waiting for some sort of reply, but he’s not given anything beyond the creature tilting his head and staring down at him, well, presumably staring down at him. Newt can’t really make out any eyes on their face at all. But the implication is there, eyeing him down the way someone would a specimen or a victim or a snack. Newt suspects, though, that if he was going to be one of these things, he’d already have been snuffed out from existence, or maybe this is a false sense of security, either way he leans into it, as he’s wont to do in these situations. Denial is, after all, the best way to fight that natural and far too human cowardice he’d given into so much in his younger years.

“Do you have a name?” Newt continues, fidgeting a bit awkwardly with his poncho.

The impression he gets from his new friend is the sensation of rapid blinking. There are many possibilities here. This creature could not know how to speak. This creature could not know how to speak any of the languages Newt’s recorder translates his voice into, which seems hard to believe. The damn device covers the thousand most commonly spoken languages in the known universe, including the language spoken here on this planet. Newt reaches to his belt, amongst his gadgets to click through the recorder, just in case it’s gotten knocked off. When he does, the creature takes a few steps back which seems outlandish that he, of all people or things, would inspire any level of fear in this looming creature.

“It’s a recording device.” Newt unclips it from his belt, holding it out. “I use it to speak to lots of people. I only speak a few languages, but when I use it, people from all over the universe can hear what I have to say and they can understand me.”

The creature, his new acquaintance, reaches out towards the recorder, running a curiously long finger down it before withdrawing their hand completely. There’s something unnerving about this creature, but Newt knows that the humanoids of a planet, even the unsettling, are the most interesting creatures to be found.

“Oh! I’m Newt,” Newt adds at length. “Realized I didn’t take the chance to introduce myself.” He holds out his hand dramatically for his new friend to take it and shake it, giving one of his megawatt grins. The creature lifts their hand curiously, reaching out to him for only a moment before withdrawing it and Newt’s face drops into a frown. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, the creature is gone in a whoosh and a flash of dark light. Which makes no sense, light is by nature, not dark. But this is a blinding flash, something supernatural on another plane.

Now it’s Newt turn to be left blinking in surprise. He’s not really sure where the creature’s gone off to, or if it’ll be back any time soon, or at all. The best recourse, despite it being early in the night, is to set himself up for the night where he is. It’s unlikely the men from earlier will do anything foolish like try to return to this very spot and while he doesn’t know what other dangers lurk in these woods, it’s best to worry about the scary things he already knows than the unknown. He glances around before he undoes his poncho, laying it on the ground to inflate into his bed (it can also be a flotation device, should he get caught in water, or a parachute if he’s falling a short distance.) For now, it’s a place to rest, because his calves are aching from the run early.

Newt flips on a flashlight from his belt and spills the mushrooms he collected out onto the bed, sorting through them to make sure they’re untainted by the tumble he’s taken earlier. Thankfully, they appear normal and completely fine, so he collects them back and bundles them into his bag. When he’d entered the forest tonight, he thought for certain they were the single most interesting thing here, but now he knows that’s not the case.

He curses himself for not getting some sort of sample, even a cheek swab or some sort of quick and easy DNA sample, just to have any further evidence. Or for his files. Now he has a brief encounter he can’t compartmentalize or analyze the way his scientific mind seeks. There’s no point dwelling on this, though, so he pops a pill from his belt (food rations for busy nights, when he doesn’t have the time or means to stop and eat) and pulls out one of his logs to record some of the things he’s seen tonight while they’re still fresh in his mind, he doesn’t want to lose these reactions and feelings, he wants to remember the curiosity and the odd lack of fear, knowing he should fear this creature. He wonders if this is the intent of the creature, the ability to make one feel no fear of it. Is he somehow victim to a thrall? There’s so much to wonder and answers he’ll never have.

Eventually, he’s recorded all he can and he sits for a long while, listening to the sounds around him and searching for the same oddly dark light. He wants to know so badly where the creature is, he wants to understand the creature and what they are doing. Objectively, he supposes this is not a good creature, or something that wishes him well. It would not be the first such creature Newt has formed an unsteady or awkward alliance with, nor would it be the last. As a scientist, it’s his job to understand the good and wholesome as well as the unpleasant. His curiosity isn’t limited only to the things that appeal to the kind hearted, even if he considers himself a kind hearted person.

When he feels certain he won’t be bothered, he curls up on the bed and decides to sleep. He will want to leave the forest first thing in the morning to make sure he’s back on time, before someone comes looking for him out of a sense of concern. There’s distant sounds that he cannot quite make out. It could be a bird calling, or a fox like creature, or the very distant sound of a scream. He can’t say for sure, each planet and each galaxy has its own noises that make its own nighttime symphony. Perhaps most unnerving is how easily the noises of the forest lull Newt to a deep sleep. There’s a chill in the air, but he feels warm and safe and comfortably and oddly, almost disturbingly protected. 

He wakes to something prodding at his cheek, alarmingly gently, almost like a caress. Newt sits up, bleary eyed and sees that his creature has returned. Rubbing his eye, he can’t help but smile. Maybe now he can obtain a sample, or see something more clearly. There’s the faintest trace of light peeking through the trees and he can’t tell if it’s morning fully here now or if it’s just starting. Each planet has its own cycles and its own days and each forest has its own secrets, its own way of telling time. Nonetheless, he looks at the device on his wrist to check the time. It’s the equivalent of four am his time, in his frame of reference. Days here, last longer, but he’s still tired despite the fact that he must have slept for at least eight hours, far more than he usually gets consecutively. 

It’s after he’s properly awake that he realizes the creature has blood on their face, and on their fingers, one of which had just gone down Newt’s cheek. Newt can’t help but give an initial grimace as he wipes it off, knowing it leaves an unappealing streak on his face. Later he can address what this means, what kind of blood this is, or whose. The creature had the opportunity to kill him, to be covered in his blood, and they’re not, which has to mean something. Or so he hopes, even if that hope is a bit foolish.

“You- uh. You came back,” he states, as though it needs said, and the creature moves back, out of his personal space. “Can you help me out of here?”

Newt isn’t sure what the gesture the creature gives means, but he thinks it’s a yes. Or maybe he’s hoping it’s a yes, because he’s not really sure how he’s going to figure out how to leave otherwise. He stretches and adjusts his outfit, cropped and made out of a tight white material (definitely not appropriate for running around in the forest) before he packs up his bedding and other materials from the night. His final step in preparation is to pluck his glasses from the ground, finally having a full focus and a full vision of the creature in front of him. For a moment he’s horrified, but he realizes now that it’s far too late for fear. Fear is an emotion he should have felt hours and hours ago, not something to feel now.

When the poncho is back in its normal state, he pulls it over his head. “Can I take a sample from you?” he asks, receiving the same gesture as before from the creature. This is either a yes or a no and Newt is being optimistic.

He fumbles in his pouch for a swab and holds out a hand to the creature. This time, the creature rests one of his long fingers in Newt’s smaller hand. He swabs very carefully (avoiding the blood, because that’s cross contamination) and then places the swab in another small pouch, this one designed to keep the sample sterile until he can take it to his lab.

“I’m a scientist,” Newt explains softly. “I’m trying to understand everything. Plants, people, not people, other animals, even some non living things. It’s very interesting work, but you’re one of the most interesting things I’ve seen.” Horrific would be a better word, if Newt would allow himself to be objective in this sort of situation. He cannot bring himself to be objective and, in fact, being objective may not be in his best interest. If he shows too much fear or doubt, it could be his blood covering his new acquaintance and that’s not what he wants at all. There are people waiting for him who would be very distressed by this.

The creature moves, this time oddly lethargic, slow. The strides are far longer than Newt’s as he walks beside him, trying to keep up. He’s oddly confident that he’ll be led to the edge of the forest, back to the safety of his spaceship and then the supreme safety of his lab, where he can hopefully get some sort of answer about what sort of thing he’s dealing with. Maybe he can return to this planet some day and get more answers. Are there more like this? Is this a lonely creature? Oh, that stings in some odd way, and Newt feels a sense of camaraderie. He’s not wholly alone, of course, because despite his abrasive curiosity he has friends, he has family, he has lovers, but he still often feels like the only creature of his kind floating in a strange and dark universe. Maybe this creature is the same, but instead of being something that exists to counteract the darkness, they exist because of the darkness, to be the darkness. Newt is a firm believer in balance in the universe.

As they walk, Newt chatters, sometimes picking up samples of things to add to his pack, as the light starts to filter through and he can see more clearly. When he stops to pick some berries from a bush, the creature makes the first noise, a low growl, and Newt takes a step back. He plucks a scanner from his belt, reading the profile of the berry. Even touching it with bare hands can result in a rash, could end in him being poisoned. He blushes his thanks to the creature and walks a bit closer for the next stretch. If the creature minds, they don’t show it. Newt only realizes then, when there’s enough light, that they’re wearing very normal looking clothes, adding to the creepy appeal, but lending more questions. Why is a creature that’s all too “human” (whatever that may mean) be lurking in the forest like a wild thing? What else could exist on this planet. Other humans, or human appearing creatures were willing to hunt him down, after all.

Eventually, the light is shining a bit too brightly through the trees and Newt knows it’s daylight and he knows he’s almost free of the forest.

“Thank you for...helping,” Newt says, standing awkwardly near his protector. “I would have probably died in there if not for you.”

There’s no answer, of course, there was never going to be an answer, because this creature will never fully understand him and he’ll never fully understand them. He’s making his peace with this by the moment. Newt turns for a moment to look outside of the forest properly and when he turns back, the creature is gone and the forest is still. If it weren’t for the sample he has stored safely away, he wonders if he’d even believe at all what happened that night.


End file.
